Point of sale

Sell products, process walk-in bookings, and manage in-person transactions.

The Sailia point of sale (POS) lets you handle in-person transactions — from walk-in activity bookings to shop product sales. It runs in your browser and gives staff a fast way to add items, apply discounts, and take payment on the spot.

What you can do in the POS

Action	Description
Book activities	Create walk-in bookings for courses, hires, and events
Sell shop products	Add physical or digital products to a basket
Apply discount codes	Enter promotional codes or let auto-apply discounts take effect
Set custom prices	Override the default price on products with custom pricing enabled
Redeem gift cards	Accept gift card payments
Process payments	Take card payments through a card reader, record cash, or send a payment link by email

POS terminals

A POS terminal is a virtual workstation that your staff use to process sales. Each terminal can be assigned to a specific location and linked to a physical card reader.

• The first terminal is created automatically — additional terminals require the Manage POS permission.
• You can activate or deactivate terminals without deleting them.
• Each terminal has its own grid layout, so you can customise the product tiles shown to staff at different locations.

To connect a physical Stripe card reader to your terminal, see the card readers guide.

Processing a sale

1. Add items to the basket

   Tap activities or shop products to add them to the current basket. For items with custom pricing, a keypad appears to enter the price.

2. Apply discounts (optional)

   Enter a discount code or let auto-apply discounts take effect. You can also apply membership discounts if the customer is a member.

3. Select a customer

   For items that require a customer account — such as activities, memberships, and activity passes — the POS prompts you to select a customer before adding the item. Enter the customer’s email to search for an existing account. If no match is found, you can create a new account directly from the prompt. For shop products and other items that don’t require an account, you can continue as a walk-in.

4. Take payment

   Choose a payment method — card, cash, invoice, or other. See payment methods below.

Pending baskets

When the POS has no active order, it displays a list of recent pending baskets for the current terminal. This helps staff quickly resume an in-progress sale instead of starting a new one.

Each card shows the customer name (or “Walk-in customer” if no account is linked), the basket total, and when it was last updated. Select a card to load that basket into the POS and continue where it left off.

Only baskets that still contain items and have not expired are shown. Up to ten recent pending baskets appear at a time.

Customer selection

When you add an item that requires a customer account, the POS opens a customer selection prompt. This uses an email-first flow to quickly find or create the right account.

Find an existing customer

Type the customer’s email address or name into the search field. Matching accounts appear as you type, showing the account email and the primary account holder’s name.

If a search matches someone in a family — for example, a child’s name — the result still shows the main account, with a label like Tom Owen + 4 more indicating how many other people are on that account. Select the row to link the family account to the order; you can choose the specific family member after the account is selected.

Family members no longer appear as separate rows in the search results. This keeps the list focused on accounts and avoids confusion when adding a participant who is not yet part of any family.

Create a new account

If no account matches the email, select the option to create a new one. The email you entered is carried over automatically. Fill in the remaining fields — phone number, full name, and optionally a date of birth — then save. The new account is linked to the order immediately.

Walk-in sales

For items that don’t require a customer account — such as shop products — a Continue as walk-in option appears at the bottom of the prompt. Walk-in sales are not linked to any customer account.

Activities, memberships, and activity passes always require a customer account. The walk-in option is only available for items like shop products and one-off payments.

Payment methods

The POS supports four payment methods. The method you choose determines how the transaction is recorded and settled.

Method	How it works
Card	Charges the customer through a connected Stripe card reader. The payment is processed in real time and appears in your Stripe dashboard.
Cash	Records the sale as a cash payment. Requires an open till shift.
Invoice	Generates an invoice for the customer. The basket stays pending until the invoice is paid. You can set a due date (defaults to 30 days) and add a payment reference.
Other	Records the payment as received through an external method. The basket is completed immediately. Use this for bank transfers or any method not listed above.

You can also email a payment link to the customer directly from the POS. The customer receives a link to complete the payment online.

Till shifts

A till shift tracks cash transactions for a POS terminal during a period of time — typically a single day or staff shift. Opening a shift is required before you can accept cash payments.

Open a shift

1. Select a terminal

   Choose the POS terminal you are working on.

2. Enter the opening cash amount

   Count the cash in the drawer and enter the amount. This becomes your starting balance.

3. Add a note (optional)

   Record any details about the shift — for example, the staff member opening the till.

Only one shift can be open per terminal at a time. If a shift is already open, you must close it before starting a new one.

Close a shift

When you close a shift, count the cash in the drawer and enter the amount. Sailia calculates the expected cash total based on the opening amount plus all cash received and refunded during the shift.

If the closing amount does not match the expected amount, the difference is flagged as a variance — useful for identifying discrepancies.

Shift statistics

While a shift is open, you can view:

• Cash received — total cash taken during the shift
• Cash refunded — total cash refunds issued
• Expected cash — opening amount plus net cash transactions
• Transaction count — number of transactions in the shift

After closing, you can view a full list of balance transactions for the shift, including the transaction type, amount, fees, and net total.

Cash payments

Cash payments are recorded separately from card payments. When you record a cash sale:

• The order is marked as paid with a cash payment method
• The payout appears in your finances under cash payouts
• If accounting sync is enabled, cash payouts are sent to the Sailia Cash Clearing Account in Xero

POS and inventory

The POS shares real-time data with your online booking page. When you sell an activity session through the POS, available spots decrease immediately for online customers too. This prevents double-booking across sales channels.

Capacity limits apply to POS sales the same way they do to online bookings. You cannot add a customer to a fully booked session through the POS.

POS grid layout

The POS uses a tile grid to give staff quick access to products, activities, memberships, activity passes, gift cards, and discount codes. You can organise tiles into folders and customise how each tile appears.

Tile types

Type	Description
Shop product	Links to a specific shop product
Activity	Links to an activity or session
Membership	Links to a membership
Activity pass	Links to an activity pass
Gift card	Adds a gift card to the basket
Discount code	Applies a specific discount code
Folder	Groups related tiles together
Category	Shortcut to a product category (Activities, Shop items, Memberships, Activity passes, or Gift cards)

Live product names

Tile names update automatically when you rename the underlying product, activity, membership, or activity pass. You don’t need to edit POS tiles after renaming an item elsewhere in Sailia.

Custom tile titles

You can set a custom title on any tile to override the default product name. Custom titles are useful when the full product name is too long for the grid or when you want a shorter label for quick scanning.

• Custom titles have a maximum length of 20 characters.
• If no custom title is set, the tile shows the current name of the linked item.
• Folders and category tiles also use custom titles for their display name.

Folders

Group related tiles into folders to keep the grid organised. When you delete a folder, all tiles inside it are removed at the same time.

Duplicate a layout

If you manage multiple POS terminals, you can copy the grid layout from one terminal to another. This replaces all tiles on the target terminal with a copy of the source terminal’s layout, including folder structure.

Duplicating a layout requires the Manage POS permission.

Permissions

Any staff member with POS access can process sales. To configure which staff can access the POS, manage their permissions in the staff settings.

The Manage POS permission is required to:

• Create additional POS terminals
• Duplicate grid layouts between terminals

Related guides

Card readers

Set up a Stripe card reader for in-person payments.

Custom pricing

Override product prices at the point of sale.

Shop products

Set up products to sell through the POS and online.

Payments and Stripe

Connect Stripe and manage payouts.